Inquiry risks a return to sectarianism

David Murray
, the former chairman of the Future Fund and a one-time Catholic schoolboy, admits to a sense of unease about the royal commission on child sex abuse.

A lack of transparency, public outcry and “more contemporary views about breaches of trust with children" meant the inquiry was inevitable, he says. But the Catholic Church is not alone in having an opaque culture and worries about the consequences of a drawn-out review, he says.

“You run the risk of a reversion to religious prejudice that Australia moved away from a long time ago," says Murray, who attended Sydney’s St Aloysius’ College in the 1960s when deep divisions existed between Protestants and Catholics.

Murray’s views are echoed by John Phillips, recently past chairman of the Foreign Investment Review Board, former deputy governor of the RBA and former AGL chairman.

Phillips, who is active in the church, recalls starting his career at Commonwealth Bank in 1946 where, he says, questions of which school you went to were not asked. “There were other places where those sorts of questions were asked and going to a Catholic school wasn’t terribly helpful in those places. In my lifetime that seems to have virtually disappeared," he says.

Related Quotes

Company Profile

But he worries the royal commission could build animosity, not between Christians, but between Christians and non-believers.

“I think there is a danger that people who would like to pursue more securalism in society will see this as an opportunity to do so."

Talk to Australian business leaders who identify as Catholic and you are not left with an impression of an overtly organised Catholic business community. In Australia’s secularising society, religion does not bind people together as it once did.

But through a shared educational background and positions on Catholic charities, schools and hospital boards and fund-raising committees, there is a something of a Catholic business network.

Some of its members who spoke to the Weekend Financial Review shared similar views on the royal commission. It is positive but risks targeting Catholics for a more widespread problem.

Mining magnate
Clive Palmer
says he believes in the Catholic Church and what it stands for. He also reveals he has had his own experience of handling abuse.

“In my life I have come across it. I confronted it and dealt with it and made sure that person was dealt with so it couldn’t happen again," he says. He backs the royal commission as long as it is not restricted to the Catholic Church. “If people attack an institution, that institution will become defensive."

Bonnie Boezeman
, managing director of Business Benefits International, has made such a contribution to the church and its World Youth Day gatherings that she’s been knighted by Pope Benedict XVI as a Dame in the Order of St Gregory the Great.

She hopes the commission helps provide closure to the victims but has reservations about the media’s portrayal of the issue.

The media’s latest revelations of child sex abuse in the church have rekindled memories of the sectarianism that divided Australia in the mid 20th century, a memory living on where Catholic business people, who grew up in the 1950s and ’60s, now volunteer their time to the church.

One such forum is the Sydney Archdiocese’s finance committee which advises Cardinal
George Pell
on administrative matters. As it happened, the committee met on Tuesday, when the church was being buffeted on all sides: the royal commission was announced the night before, a Victorian parliamentary inquiry heard evidence of church cover-ups and a former Catholic priest appeared in court charged with rape and indecent assault of a minor.

At the committee meeting were Phillips,
Stephen Newton
who runs funds management firm Arcadia and is a director of Australand, and Catherine Harris, the chairman of Harris Farm Markets.

Also present was
Karl Morris
, chairman of stockbroking firm Ord Minnett who has an insight into child sex abuse and the Catholic Church. As well as volunteering on church committees and the board of Notre Dame University, he is chairman of the Bravehearts Foundation set up by Hetty Johnstone 15 years ago to campaign against child sexual abuse.

“It’s about time," Morris says of the royal commission. “I think you’re going to find, if the terms of reference are wide enough, significant issues in relationship to the family courts, government agencies and many other sections of the community." The Catholic Church deserves some of the attacks, Morris says, given the failures of what were “a small number of individuals in the leadership". But he is unfailing in his support for Pell.

“The culture of the church in the last 20 years has changed dramatically, as society has changed as well. I think they handled it [child sex abuse] poorly historically but in the last 10 or 20 years, the way they’ve handled it with Pell ahead of his game, they have certainly changed their view."

Morris, who has received Pell at his Brisbane home, has played a key role in how the church confronts child sex abuse.

He has a part explanation for the problems: an organisational structure where each of Australia’s 28-odd bishops are accountable to the Pope, not to a head in Australia.

“Each diocese has dealt with the issue differently rather than have a consistent way of dealing with issues that have come up," Morris says. “They are not adept at dealing with these sorts of things within a flat management structure."

He’s also frustrated the church’s not-for-profit hospitals, charities such as St Vincent de Paul and its contribution to the education system slip under the radar while child sex abuse is sensationalised.

“The Catholic Church isn’t good at marketing the things that it does well because it thinks the things that it does well speak for themselves," Morris says. “The Catholic Church is not in the business of marketing. It’s in the business of saving souls and doing good works."

With the royal commission tipped to run for several years, the Catholic Church’s standing in Australian society is only just entering a long period of sustained battering.